


Growing Up Together

by EnchantressEmily



Category: Widdershins (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon Trans Character, Character Study, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 16:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20820500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnchantressEmily/pseuds/EnchantressEmily
Summary: Snapshots of Eliza and Knotty's friendship over the years.





	Growing Up Together

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [And all he sees is colours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3968752) by [ThisCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisCat/pseuds/ThisCat). 

She’s six, and she hates her name – it just doesn’t feel like her – so she tells everyone to call her Swifty instead. Her best friend is the little boy down the street, and because she’s six and he’s five and it’s the sort of thing that seems like a good idea at that age, she starts calling him Knotty so they match. Pretty soon she never calls him anything else, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

***

She’s seven and he’s six, and they’re sitting on the floor in her family’s apothecary shop, puzzling out the words on the labels. (She wants to _know_ what’s in all the bottles; Knotty just likes finding out what the letters say.) He’s faster than she is at putting letters and sounds together, but it’s hard for him to read the words out loud; he stutters so badly that even his parents sometimes have trouble understanding him. She never does, though; she always knows exactly what he means to say.

***

She’s nine and he’s eight, and they spend most of their afternoons playing with the handful of other children who live nearby. She’s one of the leaders, the ones who direct whatever game they’re playing that day. Knotty mostly hangs back, too shy to take charge, but he’s very good at being her second-in-command. Between her endless stream of ideas and his way of noticing things from his spot in the background, they’re an unbeatable team.

***

She’s ten and he’s nine, playing checkers at Knotty’s house, when she suddenly decides to tell him her big secret.

“Knotty? I’ve got something to tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anybody.”

“I p-promise. W-what is it?”

She takes a deep breath. “I’m really a girl. Everyone thinks I’m a boy, but they’re wrong.”

Knotty doesn’t even blink. “S-should I still c-call you Swifty? Or do you h-have a girl’s n-name?”

“I haven’t thought of one I like yet,” she says, feeling a rush of affection for him. “Swifty’s fine.”

“Alright. Your m-move.”

And that’s that. (Because she’d asked him not to give the secret away, Knotty still calls her “him” when he talks to other people, but years later he tells her, “It g-got harder and harder to remember, b-because you were always ‘her’ in my head.”)

***

She’s twelve and he’s eleven, and the small house down the street is too quiet now; Mr. Knott looks haggard and suddenly older. Upstairs in Knotty’s tiny bedroom, she sits beside her friend on the edge of the bed, holding him tightly as he weeps for his mum.

***

She’s thirteen and he’s twelve, and they’re standing next to Mr. Knott’s cart in the early-morning street, not knowing what to say. Mr. Knott has to travel for his work, but Knotty and his mum always stayed here in Widdershins; now, with his mum gone, he’ll be traveling with his dad instead. There’s a lump in her throat. She and Knotty haven’t gone more than a day or two without seeing each other for as long as either of them can remember.

“I’ll w-write to you,” Knotty says at last. “It won’t b-be the same, but…”

“But it’s better than nothing,” she finishes. “Yeah, I know.” She gives him a hug. “I’ll miss you.”

***

She’s fourteen and he’s thirteen, and Knotty and his dad are back for a visit, but something’s not right. Knotty seems even quieter and more anxious than usual, and he won’t talk much about what he’s been doing. Finally, after a lot of gentle prodding, she gets him to tell her what’s bothering him.

“I – I always knew D-Dad was a hangman,” he says. He has a soft voice anyway, but right now it’s barely audible. “But I n-never really understood what that m-meant – or that _I_ w-would have to do it one day.” He swallows hard. “I _c-can’t_, Swifty. I can’t k-kill someone. And I d-don’t know how to tell Dad.”

***

She’s sixteen and he’s fifteen, and she’s discovered the existence of conspiracy theories. She’s instantly enthralled – finding things out, especially things that adults don’t want you to know, has always been her favorite occupation, and this is the same idea expanded from parents to whole governments. She writes to Knotty about it at great length; he writes back more infrequently, but he sounds suitably impressed. He tells her about the books he’s reading (a lot of legal-sounding titles these days, for some reason) and the towns they’ve visited. He doesn’t say anything about his dad’s job or his own involvement with it, but she knows him, and she can feel the tension bleeding through the tidy script.

***

She’s eighteen and he’s seventeen, and she isn’t Swifty anymore; she’s Eliza Swift. She’s done trying to live up to her family’s expectations, done pretending not to be the person she’s always known she is. Long hair and skirts take a little getting used to, but they feel right in a way that her old clothes never did. She writes to tell Knotty the news, and when he replies with _Dear Eliza, Congratulations!_, the sight of her new name in her oldest friend’s handwriting sends a thrill through her. She’s running the apothecary by herself now, except for a small black kitten she found, who gets dubbed Parsley after knocking over a jar of dried herbs and rolling around in them.

***

She’s twenty and he’s nineteen, and when Knotty turns up on her doorstep in the middle of the night, in more trouble than either of them ever has been before… well, she makes sure he knows he’s been an idiot, but there’s no question whatever that she’s going to help him out of it. 

By the end of the night a major conspiracy has been unearthed, a (mostly) innocent man has had his name cleared, and they’ve all nearly died more than once. It’s simultaneously the scariest night of her life and the most exciting, and it changes things for everyone. She’s been offered a fascinating new career (and why didn’t she ever think of being a detective before?); Knotty, after having a long talk with his dad, looks like the weight of the Anchor has been lifted off his shoulders; and Will… yes, alright, she’s glad he didn’t get executed. He’s not as much of a twit as she thought at first (which is a good thing, since judging by the way he and Knotty were looking at each other, she’s going to be seeing a lot more of him).

But there’s one thing that she knows will never change, no matter what else happens in their lives: Vincent Knott, sweet, shy, and unshakably loyal, will always be her best friend.

**Author's Note:**

> The bit where Eliza writes to Knotty about her transition originated with [this fic snippet](https://enchantress-emily.tumblr.com/post/184722694695/this-is-a-sort-of-mini-fic-inspired-by-the) that I posted on Tumblr a while ago:


End file.
